


In Which Merlin is Dead

by rho_nin



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Caring Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Dark Merlin (Merlin), Evil Morgana (Merlin), Gen, Ghost!Merlin, Ghosts, Hurt Merlin (Merlin), Merlin Dies (Merlin), Merlin tries to hide the fact that he's dead, Serkets, Worried Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), he's still a prat but he's a prat that cares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:01:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23668831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rho_nin/pseuds/rho_nin
Summary: Merlin knows his job is dangerous.  He knows that he might very well die doing it.  He just didn't expect to die so soon, or to become a ghost afterward.THIS IS ABOUT CHARACTER DEATH AND TRAUMA.  PLEASE TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF WHEN READING.
Relationships: Merlin & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 182





	In Which Merlin is Dead

Merlin had spent a lot of time wondering what new monstrosity someone would send after Arthur next. He, despite his busy schedule, always found time to daydream about a new nightmare scenario or to read yet another book on magical monsters of Albion. So he knew, quite well and in gruesome detail, the effects that serket poison had on the human body.

As such, spending his evening kneeling, trapped by enchanted chains, and surrounded by vicious scorpion-monsters was not ideal. Not ideal at all.

He cast spell after spell, trying to repel the serkets long enough to escape the chains that only choked him further whenever he moved, but there was seemingly no limit to the serket’s forces. For every one that he successfully threw away from him, two more advanced. Merlin was quickly growing too tired to keep up with the unending horde of serkets that crawled ever closer from all directions. There were too many of them and the chain seemed to sap his strength. There didn't seem to be anything he could do.

As he cast about for something that he could use as a barrier around himself, a blinding, burning pain burst through his lower back — _'serrated, the serket's stinger causes more pain going out than going in'_ — and ripped back out. With a scream that barely got past his throat, Merlin fell backward. It hurt more than anything he'd ever known, and lying on the open wound was hardly doing him any favors. But Merlin couldn't figure out how he could move in his current condition, so he did nothing.

Arthur would kill him for being gone.

The pain died down after a while — _'the second stage of a serket sting includes the poison mixing into the veins of the victim, corrupting the flesh and blood'_ — but Merlin had read too much about this to be reassured. He tried to call for Kilgharrah, who'd surely know what to do about this or would at least be able to get him back to someone who would, but his voice still failed him. His magic failed him too; he couldn't summon a flame to warm him up no matter what he tried. That wasn't something he'd read about — _'the body shuts down in this stage, basic functions become limited or non-existent, and the body's ability to regulate things such as breathing, temperature, or heart rate becomes uncertain'_ — but the books were unlikely to mention the effect poisons had on magic, if they came from Uther's library.

Funny that he could still think about things like that but he wasn't even able to call out for help.

He knew that soon even his mental faculties would completely collapse, but he could still feel his fingers, so — _'in the third stage, the skin around the wound is inflamed, the victim may become nauseous, and breathing may become difficult'_ — at least he wasn't in the fourth stage yet. There was the slight issue of not knowing if there was even an antidote to a serket's sting, but Merlin tried to think of the positives.

Still...

He felt like he was going to throw up. And he was sort of breathing as if he'd just run from Camelot to Ealdor without stopping. He was definitely in the third stage and he didn't have much time left, then.

The forest was quiet now. Merlin hadn't noticed when the serkets had vanished, but he assumed that Morgause had summoned them just to kill him. Flattering. Now that they'd finished what they'd been told to do, there wasn't much point in sticking around. What way out was there for him anyway?

Kilgharrah wouldn't know he was there. It was the middle of the night, though getting closer to morning every second, so Arthur wasn't likely to notice his absence soon enough. Gaius was too used to him disappearing to go looking. Gwen was so busy nowadays that sometimes they didn’t see each other for days on end, so what was one more night to her? Merlin had never really been close enough with anyone else for them to look for him in the middle of the night, so who could he possibly expect to find him out here?

The blistering agony at the base of his back returned and it seemed to steal all the feeling from his feet and hands. Panic seized him and Merlin began to shake violently and thrash against the ground. The chains ripped into his clothes and wrists, cutting across the fabric brutally. He vomited but wasn't in a position to breathe around it — _'turn the patient on their side so that they don't choke on their own vomit'_ — and swallowed some of it back down only to throw it back up again. It was completely vile and smelled like a corpse had scared a skunk, but the worst of it was that Merlin's chances of surviving were quickly slipping into the "less than 10 percent" range, which weren't odds that he liked.

As Merlin's vision blurred and darkness encroached on the edges of it — _'in the final stage, the brain loses all ability to register or understand input'_ — his thoughts slowly slipped into less and less organized lines. He tried to piece together something he'd heard about halting the progression of poison with a spell but the thought squirmed like sentient spaghetti out of his reach. The last thing that _definitely_ made sense was, "Arthur will have to give me a day off if I actually, really die," and then all other rational thought collapsed.

He only continued to breathe for a few more seconds.

His heart counted down every few seconds until it didn't beat at all.

Then the last vestige of life in Merlin Hunithson of Ealdor disappeared, leaving only a quickly-cooling corpse lying on the forest floor.

The world itself held its breath for a moment and total silence fell over the wood. The clouds halted in the sky. Sound stopped. Light slowed. The blood creeping over the leaves that covered the ground congealed to a standstill.

Merlin's spirit sat up and very distinctly separated itself from the body it was supposed to belong to.

* * *

Merlin did not want to really continue, in any sense of the word. Or at least, he thought that he'd really earned some rest, in whatever form that rest took. To be tugged back into a world that he'd put a lot of effort into but been definitely released from was a bit of a cheap move, in his opinion.

But it was true that he still had work to do; Morgana had to be stopped, Arthur had to be warned, Gaius had to be kept company, Gwen needed a friend. And being dead (Merlin was certain that he was, as living people simply did not walk away from their bodies as he had) was no excuse to skip out on his obligations to the people of Camelot that he was responsible for. Merlin gave a ghost of a laugh (or he thought of it that way; being dead offered a lot of opportunities for puns). He would have killed for a day off just a few hours ago, but now that he technically had every excuse to not go to work, he was going anyway.

The trick of the whole thing was how he was going to get back to Camelot in time so that no one knew he had been gone. The sun was edging over the horizon already, so he didn't have much time left.

He sighed wistfully, thinking of how nice it was to sleep in his bed, small as it was. Did ghosts sleep? Eat? Would he be able to share any more meals with Gaius and lament being the manservant of a terrible prat who ran into magical trouble everywhere he went?

In a blink, Merlin was spirited into his room by the thought of it.

Immediately, Merlin realized one major issue: the door. He could hardly phase through it as he'd seemed to do with several miles and at least a dozen feet of Camelot's stone walls; who knew who was on the other side. At the very least, Gaius was, and Merlin didn't want to risk him being awake and aware enough to ask why Merlin wasn't using the door like a normal person. But how to set about moving it?

With no other guesses, Merlin shrugged and tried to open it as he did every morning.

His hand fell through the handle with a gilded shimmer.

"Shit," he muttered. At least he could talk.

Deciding to experiment, Merlin attempted to lift his blanket, still to no avail. He then tried to pick up the wooden dragon Balinor had given him, then a bead, then a feather. Nothing worked.

Frustrated, Merlin scowled and kicked at his dresser. To his surprise, it rocked away from him — _spirits of the dead rely often on strong emotions to influence our world, as they are unnatural and the world strains against their touch. Rage is the most common, followed by grief and vindictiveness. Use of these emotions to power actions corrupts the soul until it is unrecognizable_ — and Merlin recoiled from it. He didn't want his soul to go that way. He had to help Arthur. But he also had to get out of his room, and the issue of moving things without strong negative emotions was unlikely to go away.

Perhaps magic would still be usable? Merlin had been told many times that he didn't just _have_ magic, he was _made_ of it. Maybe it had followed him beyond the grave.

Moving things was one of the easiest spells to cast. Surely it would be just as easy now.

It was not.

It took Merlin at least half an hour to open the door telekinetically and about half an hour more to figure out how to do it so that it looked as if he was doing it himself. At least he'd 'gotten up' early so that he wouldn't be too late to see Arthur.

At last, Merlin opened the door smoothly enough that it looked almost normal, which he had a suspicion would become a downright rare adjective for his life in coming days. He was very careful to step down the stairs instead of glide, but it felt unnatural and alien to act as if he wasn't incorporeal. The composition of his body, if it could be called that, was a chaotic mix of thought, memory, and magic. He wasn't even sure if that was a stable cocktail.

Gaius, as it turned out, was not awake. Merlin counted this as a blessing.

He scooted as quickly as he dared down to the kitchens, took a few tries to pick up the tray of Arthur's food, and rushed to Arthur's room. He'd have to be even more careful around Arthur than normal; being a ghost would definitely have some unexpected side-effects. Who knew what it would do to his magic if he was already more inclined to float than walk?

As no one was in the hallway with him, Merlin opened the door to Arthur's room from a few feet away. He wasn't sure how probable he could make it look that he managed to open it and hold the food at the same time—how he managed to do that normally was a bit of a mystery, even to him. But it was also true that while Merlin seemed to be able to move through solid objects, that was not likely to be a transitive property and he wasn't keen on drawing Arthur's ire so early in the morning by dropping the tray of Arthur's food just because he'd tried to slip through the door and the stuff he had with him couldn't do the same.

Thankfully, Arthur was asleep as well. Without paying it much mind, Merlin deposited the tray on Arthur's desk, picked out Arthur's clothes of the dresser from across the room, and tore the curtains open from a few feet away just before he remembered that people might look and he zipped over to the window faster than he might have thought possible.

Arthur turned away from the window and hugged a pillow.

"Rise and shine!" Merlin bellowed at him, pleased that he could be so loud.

Without looking, Arthur lobbed a pillow at him. Merlin let it pass through him and laughed to himself. "Nice try. Get up."

"No," grumbled Arthur.

Merlin realized, suddenly and dejectedly, that he couldn't physically drag Arthur out of bed. The prince would easily realize that Merlin wasn't using his hands, and the can of worms that would open would be an absolute nightmare.

"Yes," he retorted. "Get up, or I'll keep yelling things my mother told me to wake me up."

Arthur yawned and snuggled further into his blankets.

"Let's have you lazy daisy!" Merlin started, using a lower voice to ramp up the intensity. 

Arthur did nothing at all.

"Up and at 'em!" barked Merlin, flapping the curtains.

Arthur covered his face with another pillow and squirmed away to the other side of the bed. Merlin ghosted to the other side too and shrieked, "When Arthur gets up in the morning, he always says g'day! G'day g'day g'day g'day g'day—"

"Oh my god, Merlin," said Arthur, finally getting up. He was covering his ears with his hands. "Were you possessed overnight by a banshee or something? That's the loudest I've ever heard you. It also scared the living daylights out of me, so if you don't mind I think I'm going to ask you to stand a little farther away from me than usual, today."

It was then Merlin realized that he was unable to blush. Normally, a jibe like that would make him flush with embarrassment. All he could muster now was an awkward wince and an odd expression.

He drifted away for a second before remembering to step.

"What?" Arthur said, as soon as he did. For a second, Merlin cursed that he wasn't even able to hide the whole dead thing for a day. Then Arthur continued, "I didn't mean it literally. Calm down and steal my food like you normally do."

Merlin didn't find it in himself to be hungry.

"No thanks, I had a large enough breakfast."

Arthur stared at him, in what Merlin could only guess was total disbelief. "I think this is a first."

"And aren't you glad it is?"

"Sure," Arthur quipped, easily falling into their banter, "as long as it's followed by a second and a third and a fourth."

"Oh, I'm sure it will be."

Arthur looked at him queerly but dug into his breakfast without thinking about it too much. Merlin mimicked his usual way of shuffling around the room, cleaning up clothing and dusting off books. He just had to ignore the change of flesh to something not-really-of-this-world long enough to not freak Arthur out. Could he turn invisible? Ghosts could do that, couldn't they?

He turned to the wardrobe, trying to organize it for the fourth time in as many days. No matter what he did to it (and no matter that Arthur basically had no business opening his own wardrobe, given that Merlin picked out his clothes every day), Arthur ruined every system he could possibly conceive of. On Monday, when he'd first resolved to get the wardrobe to at least in some ways be organized and clean, he'd put the formal clothing on the right side and the more work-worthy clothing on the left. By the next morning, though, it had all been mixed together so that Merlin couldn't find anything at all. He'd tried two other systems in the days between that day and this one, all with the same results.

_"...Merlin!"_ called Arthur, in the sort of voice that he used when he'd been calling a few times now. But there sounded to be more fear than usual.

"What!" Merlin snapped back, which was more hostile than he intended. Perhaps they were both just off their rhythm.

He pulled his head out of the wardrobe just in time to get a full blast of Arthur's chair _scraaaaaaaaping_ against the stone floor. Merlin, in that moment, wanted nothing more than to be able to break the knob off the wardrobe door.

"You're off this morning," Arthur said.

Merlin fought the urge to roll his eyes. Who wouldn't be, after being the victim of a murder?

"I slept badly."

"You definitely look paler than yesterday." Arthur reached out, as if to pat Merlin on the shoulder.

“No!” Merlin jerked away and saw the unconcealed hurt on Arthur's face too late. "Not today, Arthur. Sorry." He couldn't think of any good excuse for why, so he just shrugged and said, "I should go. I need to, um, I— herbs. For Gaius. I'll be back... sometime. Today, later, or tomorrow in the morning." Merlin fought the urge to just clip through the floor on his way out but got to the door without phasing through anything. He paused, struggling to use the door handle. Grimacing, he looked over his shoulder at a dumbstruck Arthur. "You have audiences today and a meeting about the outer villages. Don't forget!"

As soon as he had closed the door behind him, Merlin raced through the halls to find an unattended mirror. He looked paler? Was he a _gruesome_ ghost? He couldn't be, not if no one had screamed at his appearance yet. But he probably didn't look quite alive, right? Apart from the floating and passing through walls.

He found one in a guest room the floor below Arthur's room.

There was no blood on him, which was great, nor were his clothes torn up as they had been by the chains. But he did look pale, as if he'd lost a lot of blood. Appropriate.

Out of curiosity, Merlin tried to put his hand through his shoulder.

It didn't work, and he felt as solid as he did before his death. Was this a way to cheat the incorporeality? He rested his hand on his shoulder and tried to run into the four-poster bed.

He passed right through it and barely managed to slow down in time to avoid passing through the wall to the outside of the castle.

"Well, shit." Irritated, Merlin edged out of the bed and back to the mirror, ready to try something else. He imagined his hand disappearing and fading into total transparency. At first, it looked only like his hand did usually— which was to say, a bit like a daddy longlegs had been turned into a hand. Slowly, though, it faded to the point that he could see his reflection through it, if he held it up to his face.

Whooping with delight, Merlin faded so completely that his reflection was barely distinct enough for even Merlin to see.

He needed to be able to regulate it completely, though. He couldn't just vanish as Arthur was talking to him or go translucent while he tried to polish Arthur's armor. That would be suspicious, to say the least. And Merlin needed to at least make everything seem normal for a month or however long it took to expose Morgana.

Speaking of Morgana, was she back yet? It would be... awkward to run into her, after she'd left him to die with malicious intent. Arthur didn't know Merlin was supposed to be dead, so Merlin couldn't possibly hide that he was there from her. Would she be more perceptive to his ghostliness, or would she be as oblivious as Arthur was? Would she notice the way he didn't walk as people did? Did she know how her sister's chains had torn apart his clothes and ripped into his skin? Did she know what happened when a serket sting embedded itself in one's back and set the skin on fire, boiling the blood and smoking thoughts out of the brain?

_CRACK!_

The red cleared from Merlin's vision and he realized that the mirror had cracked, fracturing his now-visible reflection. He gasped.

Not only was he visible, he was in the same condition as he'd been when he'd died. Blood dripped from his back, his veins were black and stood starkly against his skin, and his coat and shirt were ripped horizontally. He looked far more dead than he'd even realized his corpse did.

Speaking of, what _was_ happening to his corpse? Well, reasoned Merlin, it was probably decomposing as most corpses did. That being said, Arthur would probably want to see it whenever Merlin actually came clean about being dead and all. Or Gaius would. Or Gwen. Someone would. Wouldn't they?

More than anyone else's desire for proof of his death, though, Merlin recoiled at the thought that his corpse might be desecrated. He didn't want it to be eaten or stripped clean. Strangely, he felt almost more protective of his corpse than he had of Arthur.

But he'd told Arthur he needed to collect herbs for Gaius, so technically he had a perfect excuse to leave the citadel and bury his body.

Merlin took a breath (or mimicked the motion anyways) and closed his eyes, focusing on becoming totally invisible. As he felt his being settle, he opened his eyes to a reflection of an empty room. Satisfied, he sank through the floor and zipped through the lower town and into the woods. The further he went, the more a pull in his stomach strengthened and yanked him even deeper into the forest. As he crested a very familiar ridge, it dawned on him exactly what the magnet was that was drawing him in.

His body.

However, his body was surrounded by people in cloaks.

Though one part of his brain — the rational part that was still _him and totally as he should be_ — recognized them as druids and friendly if not his allies, another part — feral, raging, and primitive to the point of total brutality — lashed out with an unfamiliar power before he could process what was going on.

_"WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH MY BODY?!"_ he roared, his voice distorted by the magic he was pulsing with.

The druids flew away from the corpse, each landing with solid thump. One of them, the one that had been near Merlin's head, scrambled upright and choked out, "Lord Emrys, please!" before Merlin knocked her out.

Merlin wrestled with himself for control of his magic and his form glitched and buzzed while he magic flared wildly. The trees whipped unnaturally in a conjured wind. Grass grew over the ankles of the druids. Fires, fueled by nothing but turmoil, exploded in the air in fits and bursts. Through it all, Merlin unleashed an unholy screech like a banshee just before a mass death.

"Lord Emrys," cried a different druid, "please! We're only honoring your body. We had no idea that you were still here! If you have another way that you would like us to do so, please tell us. We mean no disrespect."

Merlin shook his head. He felt like he was going to cry, or wished that he could. "I am so sorry, to all of you. I didn't— I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to do that. And I— I want my body preserved. However you do that, I want it to happen. If you can, make it last a month. Maybe more."

He pulled his magic back and released the druids. He left them with a healing spell that was more potent than he'd ever managed in life.

"Ah, Lord Emrys?" asked the smallest and, Merlin concluded, the youngest druid as Merlin turned to leave. "Do you... want to see your body? Before we work our spells on it, that is? It won't look too different— that is, you won't— but you might..."

One of the other druids rested their hand on the youngest's shoulder, communicating silently.

"No, thank you," Merlin said quietly. "I already know what it looks like."

Then he was out of the woods in a blink and manifested back in the abandoned room with a mirror. Shaking, he tried to steady himself but only fell through anything he leaned on. He let himself drift through the room, aimless and barely visible. Why was he even hanging on now? He was so removed from this plane of existence that he couldn't touch anything properly. Arthur would never pat him on the back again, Gwen would never hug him, Gaius would never treat another of his injuries (no matter how unpleasant that was).

Oh, why couldn't he just have survived and made everything a lot easier for himself?

* * *

Merlin emerged from the room in the middle of the night, when he was sure the fewest servants would be out and about. Morgana was prone to wandering the halls, though she didn't really 'wander' anymore. She always had a destination in mind, one that typically led her to her sister.

Needless to say, Merlin didn't think she'd need to meet her sister the night after a supposed successful murder.

Or, really, it _was_ a successful murder. It was not 'supposed.' There was a body in the woods to confirm that Merlin was very much dead. There could be little doubt cast on that, other than by people who were left deliberately in the dark.

But for now, Merlin just needed to pass the time. There was no one he could talk to about being dead as he was still going he could accomplish everything he needed to without confessing that. The dragon was goodness-knows-where, now that he'd been let out of the cavern. Could the ghosts of dragonlords still call to their kin, or would Merlin be robbed of that comfort too?

Deciding that now was not the time to test that, Merlin drifted to Kilgharrah's prison and spent the night wandering around it, trying to do _something_ so as not to die again of boredom.

* * *

Over the next week, Merlin settled into a sort of routine that mostly consisted of trying to avoid everyone else in the castle. He'd only seen Morgana once— she'd gaped at him in astonishment and anger before he turned a corner and she hadn't followed him. He was certain that Morgause already knew that he was still around, but what was she going to do? Kill him?

So far, it didn't seem like Arthur had seen any difference in Merlin, and Merlin was content to keep it that way.

An hour or so before the sun came up, Merlin would leave the caverns and collect Arthur's breakfast, which he bespelled to stay warm until Arthur bit into it. He'd lay out all of Arthur's clothes and enchant the curtains to open when the sun rose so he didn't have to be there to wake Arthur up. He also left a list of all the meetings Arthur had to attend, at what time, and where. As soon as Arthur left for training, Merlin came back in and cleaned up the room so that it would be pristine by the time Arthur got back. He'd continue the day generally doing everything he needed to while avoiding human contact until the sun went down, at which point he took Arthur's armor to the caverns and polished them until he could practice his invisibility in it. In fact, he did most of his chores at night nowadays.

Merlin was getting a little tired of all his hiding, but at least no one asked him about why he had an inconsistent relationship with gravity or an aversion to remaining solid.

Near the end of the week, as Merlin reviewed everything he knew about Morgana and Morgause, he passed through an upstairs corridor. Generally, the corridor was unused due to it being not really on the way to anything, so Merlin had taken to using it as a default route to avoid detection. Today, however, was not a lucky day for Merlin.

He wandered into one of the unused rooms and lay down on the unmade bed, happy to at least have some vestige of a solid body. He closed his eyes, wondering if he could mimic sleep well enough to dream, when a weight plopped on the mattress near his head.

"Is this where you hide every day?"

Merlin's eyes flew open, but he didn't need to see to know who had found him.

_Arthur._

"No, I do my chores every day. It's just that the workload has increased and I don't have time to waste anymore." He sat up and got off the bed, moving away from Arthur so he couldn't be touched. "I'm just tired, so I decided to lie down in here for a bit."

Arthur's mouth twisted a bit and his eyebrows furrowed together, but Merlin couldn't even begin to decipher what that expression was. "Are you alright?"

Caught off guard that he hadn't been insulted, Merlin backed up further. "I'm fine. Really, I'm completely okay. I just didn't get a whole lot of sleep last night and I don't have much to do at the moment, so..." He gestured to the bed. "Why do you ask?"

"Well," started Arthur, as if he wasn't sure he should say, "you sort of look terrible. As a matter of fact, you look like death."

For the first time in a week, Merlin laughed. It was a harsh, barking laugh, but a laugh all the same. "Thanks. I feel like it, too."

It was at that moment that Merlin lost a great deal more of his inhibitions than he would have liked to.

"Have you been sleeping _at all_ recently? You have these," Arthur brushed the skin under his eyes, "dark circles that look like you've got bruises there. Your face looks sunken."

"Nope," Merlin shook his head, "haven't been able to."

"Have you eaten anything in the last few days?"

"Nah."

"Have you done anything at all to maintain your health?"

Merlin shrugged. "No point."

Arthur's mouth was agape and at least this was an expression Merlin was acquainted with: he was horrified.

"Okay, wait," Merlin interrupted. "Hold on. It's not... as bad as it sounds. Don't jump to any conclusions here— I'm fine. I'm just a little agitated. Or— I mean, I'm just a little tired and I have been tired for a week or so. Nothing to worry about. Really, I promise." When Arthur still looked unconvinced, Merlin held out his hand with only a pinky extended. "Look, do you want me to pinky-swear? Is that what it takes?"

"Merlin!"

"Is that a no?"

"You—!"

"This has been a great talk, Arthur, but I've got to go." With that, Merlin hurried out of the room.

_"Merlin!_ I'm not done, come back here." Merlin obliged and turned around to see Arthur glaring at him thunderously. "How can you possibly claim to be fine when you _admit_ that you have not eaten or slept in goodness knows how long? What's _wrong_ with you?"

"Really, it's nothing." Except for the fact that he was actually dead, with his body still in the woods.

"That's not true. I haven't seen you in a week and you tell me there's no point in taking care of yourself?" Something that looked like dawning suspicion crossed Arthur's face and Merlin shifted uncomfortably. "Let me see your arm."

"What?"

"You heard me. Roll up your sleeve."

Arthur closed in on him, looking like he would do it himself, and Merlin held up his hands as fear seized his chest. What if Arthur found out, here and now? He wasn't ready to explain everything and he didn't want to show Arthur his body. That was just... it felt like it would be cruel. Arthur would definitely realize if he tried to touch Merlin, as Merlin had yet to figure out how to regain corporeality.

"I'll do it, okay? Just stay over there." He pushed back his sleeves and presented his forearms to Arthur. He tried not to shake as he did.

But instead of nodding or looking like he was satisfied with what he'd seen, Arthur only frowned and squinted at Merlin, looking him over like a diagram or report he couldn't quite make sense of. It made Merlin's skin crawl— or at least, it mimicked the feeling very well.

"What, Arthur? What is it?" When Arthur didn't respond, Merlin shook his sleeves down and crossed his arms. "Can I go now?"

Arthur finally picked his jaw up off the floor and stalked towards his servant, still visually dissecting him. “You can go now, I guess. _IF,_ and only if, you promise—swear to me, actually—that you’ll go see Gaius. It can’t be healthy not to sleep or eat and you’ve had me go in for less. I’ll make sure that you do.”

“So,” said Merlin, grinning with a twinkle in his eye, “pinky promise?”

“No.”

* * *

Merlin debated for a while whether or not to actually see Gaius, who was most likely to realize that he was a ghost. What would Arthur do if he didn’t? And what would Gaius do if he found out?

Eventually, he settled on the age-old out of obeying the letter of the law but not the spirit of it and blinked into the top of the tower Gaius occupied to save time. He opened the door without knocking; his ability to make any sort of sound by hitting an object was unreliable at best.

“Gaius?” he called as he poked his head through the doorway. “Are you in there?”

“Up here, my boy,” came the response. Sure enough, Gaius was looking through the upstairs bookshelves that he’d fallen from the first day Merlin had arrived. Good times.

“Hey, I just wanted to say, I’m sorry I haven’t been around this last week. I just—I don’t have an excuse, really.”

“No worries. I figured you were occupied with something important and there weren’t enough hours in the day. I do wish, though,” and Gaius glared, “that you’d come to me with whatever you’re navigating. As I’m certain you recall, I can be quite helpful.” He turned back to the bookshelf, hands on his hips. “Now, do you know where _‘A Complete Guide to Abandoned Pieces’_ is? I’ve been looking all over for it and haven’t been able to find it.”

Merlin had absolutely no idea what book that even was.

“Maybe you returned it to Geoffrey?”

Gaius shook his head. “No, I didn’t get it from him. It’s from my own collection. Still, I have no idea what could have happened to it. It’s supposed to be right _here,”_ Gaius jabbed a finger at an empty slot on the shelf, “but it isn’t.”

Merlin scanned the room for anything that might be _‘A Complete Guide to Abandoned Pieces’_ but couldn’t even guess what he was looking for. As he rifled through a stack of then volumes near Gaius’ bed, he heard the physician mutter, “Now, if I were a fifty-year-old book about ghosts, where would I be…”

He stood up ramrod straight, invested all the more.

“Gaius, what did you say the _‘Complete Guide’_ was about?”

“It’s a comprehensive volume on the various forms a human soul can take after death. Now, it’s imperative that we find it, as it is legally questionable at best. I don’t want any young squires to be hanged for finding a book that Uther finds distasteful.” Gaius lowered himself to the slats of the balcony, groaning as he did so, to look at the lower shelves. “I just don’t know where it could have gotten to.”

Merlin started to vibrate, unable to contain his elation or the grin that split across his face. Without stopping to think about it, he held out his hand and only waited a few seconds for a monstrously thick book to shoot out of the far corner and into his palm. He was solid—solid!—and could barely keep the whoop of excitement from booming out of his chest. He put the tome down on the table, not knowing when he would cease to be solid again, and rushed up the steps to the upstairs shelves, barely holding his form together.

“Gaius! You’ll never guess what I just did!”

“And what was that?” Gaius didn’t look up.

“I—” Merlin cut himself off. How could he say anything about his success in corporeality without admitting that it was uncommon? Maybe… “I figured out how to make myself intangible!”

“You _what?”_ Gaius demanded, standing up as fast as he could. His joints cracked loudly and Merlin cringed.

“I made myself intangible, do you want to see?”

_“Merlin,_ how on earth did you do that?”

Merlin hummed nervously and looked away, trying to keep his form from vibrating into oblivion. He was sure to have some sort of deranged grin on his face which was either the product of his nerves, his ghostly nature, or both. “Well, this funny thing happened about a week ago, and—”

“My _god_ Merlin, are you saying you’ve been in and out of being solid for the last seven days? This is why I haven’t hide nor hair of you, isn’t it. Do you have any idea what effect that can have on your body?”

“Well, what I wanted to tell you was that just a moment ago, I was solid again, so maybe it isn’t so bad.”

“How have you been completing your chores for Arthur?”

“With telekinesis and not being in the same room.”

“Forgive me, but that doesn’t sound like a very long-term strategy to me.”

“It isn’t.”

Gaius put out a hand to test Merlin’s intangibility, but instead of it falling through Merlin’s shoulder his hand came to rest on it. Merlin jolted at the feeling of _anything_ and put his hand on Gaius’ and grinned at the contact.

“This is the first time I’ve touched anything in more than seven days.”

Gaius wiped his face with an exhausted air and took his hand back. “Just go get some sleep and I’ll see what I can do.”

“Sure thing.” Merlin, too scared that he wouldn’t regain corporeal form if he shed it, walked down the stairs warily. “Oh, by the way. I found the _Complete Guide._ Do you mind if I read it? I had no idea we even had it.”

“Yes, go ahead. I only wanted to know where it was.”

With a smile, Merlin ran to his room and locked the door. He could stay there for the night, but come tomorrow, he’d definitely be returning to the cavern under the castle.

* * *

Merlin left Gaius’ chambers a few hours after midnight. As interesting as the _Complete Guide_ was, he couldn’t bear to stay still now that he had unending restless energy. So he climbed the steps—he almost missed being able to pass through walls, but he also still treasured _feeling_ things and didn’t dare try to undo whatever had reintroduced him to living solidly—to the empty room with the mirror he’d cracked, and tried to make himself look a little less dead.

Slowly but surely, color returned to his face. Merlin, if asked, would not have been able to teach someone else how to do the same. It was instinctual to the point of being a primal action, as if changing his appearance in such a way had replaced the urge to breathe. Once satisfied, Merlin lay down on the bed, hoping that it would feel warm. Much to his disappointment, he sunk too far into the bed to warrant the title of ‘tangible’ any longer. Sighing, Merlin drifted through the wall and down to the kitchens in record time. If he was going to be a ghost, of whatever sort he was, he might as well make the most of it, even if all that meant was getting all of his chores done on time.

He arrived at Arthur’s room and bumped the door open with magic so quiet it could barely be called a spell. Humming to himself, Merlin set the tray on Arthur’s table and set about the room, going through his normal morning routine.

“This is awfully early, Merlin.”

Hardly remembering to rein in his undead reflexes, Merlin spun to face Arthur, who was already dressed, not to mention out of bed.

“I guess that checks a few things off my to-do list,” Merlin replied. He was starting to shake, and he already knew that didn’t fall anywhere near the category of a Good Thing, not in the state he was in.

“So let me add a few more: we’re going on a hunt. Get the horses ready and enough supplies for a few days, a week at most.” Arthur waved his hand in flippant dismissal. As Merlin carefully walked to the door, watching every step for fear it would do something unnatural, he could feel Arthur’s stare on his back. He scowled and whipped around.

“What are you doing that for?” he growled.

“I’m worried about you,” Arthur said, and Merlin could tell it surprised him too.

“Well, don’t be.” And before Arthur even had time to respond, Merlin slipped out the door and sped down to the stables to get the horses saddled up. Halfway through doing so, Merlin realized that riding a horse himself could present unnecessary difficulties. And since he couldn’t get tired, walking the whole distance had no foreseeable challenges.

His mind made up, he let his own horse’s tack stay on its hook. It was for the best, really; Bunny reared away from him whenever he got close. Merlin figured he didn’t smell the same, though there was probably something else that marked him as unnatural to the animal.

It wasn’t long before Arthur arrived. He was dressed as he had been in his room: all in dark clothes and totally lacking the conspicuous Pendragon red.

“Where’s Bunny?” asked Arthur in lieu of a greeting.

“Bunny’s throwing a bit of a fit, so he’s not coming. Also, I fell over last night and riding a horse for a long time would be sort of painful. So I’m walking.” Merlin caught Arthur’s skeptical eyebrow and cleared his throat. “Or jogging, as the case may be.”

“Don’t be ridiculous; how could you possibly keep up with me?”

“I can be quick when I like!”

Arthur merely rolled his eyes in response and mounted Llamrei, kicking her into a walk. Merlin kept up easily, chattering about a few things he’d done over the past week, from ‘exploring a few caves’ to ‘learning some new medical skills with Gaius,’ none of which held up to intense scrutiny at all. But it was enough to occupy Arthur while they left the city. Arthur guided them towards the woods, still going at the same slow trot, and Merlin barely paid attention.

Until, that is, he recognized a few trees. And then a few more, until he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, where Arthur was going.

“Hey, Arthur? The, er, game around here is crap. Let’s hunt somewhere else.” The excuse was terrible; the game in the darkling woods was really no worse than anywhere else and Arthur knew that. Still, the least Arthur could do was _listen_ to him for once, even if what he was saying was ridiculous.

“No, it’s not, Merlin. Besides, this is on the way to everything else.”

And that seemed to be that.

But they’d only gone a bit farther when Merlin stopped them, glad for another excuse not to go any closer to the clearing that would bring too many questions with it that he didn’t want to answer.

“Arthur!” Merlin stopped walking completely, forcing Arthur to halt as well. “We don’t have any hunting equipment. Where’s your bow? How do you expect to kill anything if you don’t _at least_ have your bow? Not to mention, how have neither of us realized up to this point? We’ve got to go back and get it.”

Arthur did not look as concerned or even as irritated as Merlin hoped he would. He looked rather like he was trying not to laugh. “Oh no,” he said in a voice too deadpan for Merlin to think he’d actually forgotten. “Oh darn, we really did forget it. That’s too bad. Why don’t we keep riding a little longer and have a picnic. I have food, of course, and I might even share with you if you ask nicely.”

He kicked Llamrei into a trot, and Merlin resigned himself to being discovered. There weren’t really many consequences to it, now that he had to face the possibility. It wasn’t like his magic, which would cost him a friend and possibly his life. For one, he’d already died and couldn’t die again, as far as he was aware. But Merlin also couldn’t possibly see how Arthur would be angry with him for being dead. It wasn’t like it was _his_ fault.

So Merlin kept his eyes glued to the ground until he heard Arthur’s scream of _“Oh my god!”_

“Yeah,” Merlin whispered.

“Merlin, there’s something that looks like your body here!” Arthur waved Merlin towards him and then sped to the side of the clear coffin that housed Merlin’s body.

The same feral, vicious rage that had filled him when he’d found the druids administering final rites flooded back through him. It was all he could do to keep himself from combusting or mirroring his corpse. Instead, he growled, “Don’t you touch it.”

It still reverberated with supernatural power, and Merlin knew the jig was up.

Arthur stopped just short of removing the lid of the coffin and stared at Merlin’s ghost. “Merlin, what’s going on? Do you know what this is?”

He was sure his shirt and jacket were ripping as he spoke, but Merlin spoke anyways. “Yes. And if you touch it I’m not sure how much control I’ll have over my actions, so I’d prefer that you back off. I’m sure you would too.”

“Merlin. Tell me what this is. _Now.”_

Merlin cleared his throat and started vibrating again. “It’s my body.”

“Sorry, it’s your _what?_ Merlin, what the hell! This is not a funny prank.”

“It’s not a prank, I swear. A week ago, I was killed in this very clearing by serkets. Since then, I have only been tangible once and sometimes I’m invisible. There’s a few…,” Merlin paused, trying to figure out how to explain it all to someone who was still _alive,_ “things that come with being how I am, I guess you could say. ‘Side effects’ might be a better name.”

Arthur’s gaze zipped between the corpse and the phantom, obviously not sure what to make of it all. His hand rested on the hilt of his sword and twitched whenever Merlin moved too quickly. “Like what?”

“Well, gravity doesn’t have the hold on me that it ought to, for one.” To demonstrate, Merlin stopped insisting his feet touch the ground. He floated, and it felt so much more comfortable than planting his feet on the ground that he wondered how he’d managed to keep them there for so long.

“Fuck,” Arthur said, gaping.

Merlin laughed. If he was still breathing, he would have described the guffaw as breathless. “I know, right?”

“You’ve been like this for a week, you said?”

“Yep.”

Arthur dropped his hand from the pommel of his sword and dragged it through his hair instead. “You’ve been so quiet the whole time and you wouldn’t touch things and…” he began to pace the clearing, “you hid and avoided me and even Leon’s been worried it’s so bad and I can’t believe I didn’t even _notice—”_

“You sure noticed more than anyone else in the city,” Merlin interrupted. “You’re the only person who confronted me about it. Even Gaius just figured I’d figure it out. You actually chased me down to my hiding spot and interrogated me. And, sure, I hardly appreciated it at the time, but it’s sweet of you to care. I…” He couldn’t keep comforting Arthur, pretending that this was all fine. “Arthur, I don’t know what to do now.”

The prince seemed to consider this. He crossed the clearing to the coffin, saying, “We’ll have to give you a proper burial, of course, we can’t just _leave_ you here,” and the tense chaos slowly filled Merlin again. Arthur rested his hand on the lid of the coffin and it erupted.

His clothes, he knew as he knew the color of the sun as it set, were tearing. His veins were turning black and blood had begun to pour from his back. Jets of flame burst in and out of existence around him and a thunderstorm rolled in like a handful of cursed dice, lightening quickly focusing into bolts that struck the earth, though none were close enough yet to be dangerous. His jaw distended into a scream he couldn’t control.

The chaos, the fear, the turmoil that boiled and spat below the surface, most of which had been there long before his death, had finally exploded into the material plane. It drowned out everything else. That was his _body,_ and this—this—this _man,_ whoever it was, was just going to _stand by it._

“…Merlin… please…,” managed to slither through the rest of the devastating cacophony.

He tried to shake away the red haze, but couldn’t help the surge of satisfaction that _someone_ was getting what they deserved.

It was only when he felt something drip onto his cheek that his expanding soul confined itself again to something resembling a person.

The sky cleared as quickly as it had spoiled. His ghostly mandible returned to the rest of his phantom skull. The blood at his back faded back into the wound, though his clothes were just as torn as they’d ever been.

The fire remained, though.

Merlin (he was Merlin, and he knew that again) brushed his cheek, taking something wet with his fingers.

It was clear against his skin and even though he knew he’d conjured the taste from his own mind, it was salty; it was a tear. He’d been crying the whole time? Throughout the whole blasted episode, he’d been weeping?

“Merlin,” gasped Arthur. “Gods, Merlin, what the fuck.”

He took a few more heaving breaths, and Merlin realized he must have been suffocating him.

“I’m—” his voice cracked. “Arthur, I’m so, so sorry. I never meant to hurt you, I’m sorry; I never want to hurt you—I don’t know what I’d even _do_ if—”

“Merlin, stop.” His hand was still on the coffin. How was his hand still on the coffin? Merlin should have still been flipping out but instead a thick silence had descended over the woods, smothering Merlin in it. “You don’t have to apologize. You might—ha!—have to, you know, explain basically _all of this,_ but this…” He trailed off, looking at the undoubtedly-gruesome corpse. “Some of the knights have fallen apart after being hurt or… or tortured. I can’t imagine what getting killed does to you.”

“It turns you into a ghost,” Merlin replied drily. Banter, at least, felt safe.

“And doesn’t make you any less of an idiot, apparently. I’m _trying_ to say that you’re really in it this time, and I’ll help.” He ran his hand through his hair again. “I mean, you at least deserve a day off. I can’t believe you came to work after being murdered, as lazy as you are.”

The fires at last died down.

“Can we go back now?”

“I suppose the picnic wouldn’t do you any good, so we might as well.”

* * *

Merlin had vanished from Arthur’s sight as quickly as possible when they were back at the castle, despite the prince’s obvious intent to discuss the whole ‘dead’ thing until they’d rehashed every bloody detail of the violent affair. He fell back into Kilgarrah’s old cave, the one spot no one would look for him. Being found meant having to explain, and explaining would inevitably lead to some very awkward questions about Morgana and Merlin himself, none of which he looked forward to answering. It was better to hide from the whole issue—Arthur _had_ given him the day off, after all.

What _had_ dying done to him? Since coming to Camelot, he hadn’t lost control of his magic like he did as a ghost.

It was often difficult to tell the time in Kilgarrah’s former residence, given the nature of caves, but he emerged after what he estimated to be several hours and wandered the halls. He wasn’t taking any particular care to actually walk, nor was he thinking about what he looked like as he patrolled the desolate corridors of Camelot’s citadel, but it was nice to see the moonlight shining through the windows. It was a sight he hadn’t been around to observe for a long time.

As he made his way to the ramparts, he was shaken out of his self-contained peace by a shriek.

“Why are you haunting me?!”

Merlin turned, though he honestly couldn’t say how, and saw Morgana, wrapped in a robe and her hair piled on top of her head. She must have just rolled out of her room.

“I’m not haunting you more than anyone else,” Merlin answered, a little annoyed. How self-centered did you have to be to think that someone else’s death was all about you? For crying out loud, he was just trying to mind his own business.

“Then why are you _here?”_ she demanded.

“Where else would I be?” he snapped back.

“In Avalon!” she wailed, “or Hell! I don’t care, just not _here!”_

“You…” His voice chilled. “You killed me. Now you want to decide where my soul goes?”

“Yes! You’re a scummy little bootlicker of murderers and traitors of the natural order, and we were _right_ to get you out of the way! Morgause and I are making things _right;_ we’re fixing this shitshow of a kingdom!” She tore at her hair, her voice rising. “I don’t feel remorse! I’m not guilty, I don’t miss you, I just want you to _go away!”_

Before Merlin even knew what was happening, Morgana flew through the air and crunched against the wall.

“That’s not how ghosts work,” he snarled. “You killed me. Face the consequences.”

Her hair had tumbled from its arrangement, just barely concealing the streak of blood slowly streaming from her forehead. She screeched a spell, but it just passed through Merlin with no effect.

The temperature rose. Magic, the same magic that had always swirled intangibly about Merlin as a child and tingled when he called upon it, sparked and sizzled at his fingertips. She’d attacked him. Hadn’t she done enough damage? Wasn’t this all too far, now? Wasn’t this all her fault anyway: Merlin’s death, the impending weight of the crown on Arthur’s head, the suffering and murder of guards?

A fire flared into life, and it took Merlin too long to realize that, for once, he was using fuel, and that fuel was Morgana.

Maybe, if he was still alive, he would’ve felt guilty. Instead, he just felt… calm. Still.

Morgause, decided whatever piece of his mind that was satisfied with this outcome, would be next.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it. Only the first half (or so) of this is beta-ed, so consider any mistakes my own.


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